Commonwealth Bank’s Ian Narev reshuffles executive team

James Thomson

Commonwealth Bank is hunting for a new boss for business and private banking division after incumbent Grahame Petersen announced he will retire at the end of 2014.

Simon Blair, the executive in charge of the bank’s international finance services division, will step down from his role and the bank’s executive committee.

He has been replaced by Rob Jesudason, who is currently the head of strategic development at CBA.

Commonwealth Bank is hunting for a new boss for business and private banking division after incumbent Grahame Petersen announced he will retire at the end of 2014.

Advertisement

He has worked for the bank for nearly 35 years, and for the past 10 years has been a member of the group executive committee in three different leadership roles.

Chief executive Ian Narev said Mr Petersen is “widely admired”, but had been discussing with him his intention to retire.

He was the head of wealth management from 2006 to 2011, the period in which a Senate inquiry into the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found Commonwealth Bank’s wealth arms had falsified customers details so they could tip their funds into risky investments and sell them loans they couldn’t afford.

“Grahame has made a significant contribution to the group, always demonstrating the benefit of his experience, strategic thinking and people focus,” Mr Narev said in a statement.

The business and private banking division has been performing well. Business and corporate loans increased by $6 billion in the 2012-13 financial year, up 4 per cent to $172 billion.

But analysts say much of this is not down to Mr Petersen. Rather it is the roll out of new mobile payments options to small business on mobile devices and same day payments to busiinesses to aid working capital.

“He is a bit of a corporate executive journeyman in CBA,” said one analyst.

Simon Blair, the executive in charge of the bank’s international financial services division, will step down on October 31 from his role and the bank’s executive committee.

He will still represent CBA Group on boards in China, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. He started at CBA in 2006 as CEO of Sovereign Insurance and joined the executive committee in 2009 to lead the CBA Group’s Asian businesses.

Rob Jesudason, who is currently the head of strategic development at CBA, will take over Mr Blair’s role on November 1, but will initially retain his present job as group executive group strategic development.

Mr Jesudason is one of a new guard at CBA, starting in 2011. Mr Narev said he has worked for 20 years in financial services and has extensive experience in Asia, making him a natural successor to Mr Blair.

One banking analyst said Mr Jesudason is well respected by the market, but didn’t think this heralded any new direction for CBA’s international division, which is a tiny part of the company.

He said he saw the move as just giving a group executive divisional operational experience.